On the Cusp of Turning 10, Juniper & Ivy Is Changing Its Style of Dining

As it approaches a milestone ten-year anniversary, Juniper & Ivy is shaking up its dining format for the month of August, setting aside the current a la carte structure in favor of a hyper-local prix-fixe menu that will serve as a retrospective of its decade in San Diego and perhaps signal its culinary direction going forward.

Starting with its opening back in March 2014, the restaurant has played a significant role in helping to ignite the burgeoning north end of Little Italy, presenting a progressive menu to local diners in a soaring 7,500-square-foot space. Executive chef Anthony Wells has been at Juniper & Ivy since its inception and in 2022 was a semifinalist nominee in the Best Chef, California category of the James Beard Foundation Awards.

Continuing owner Michael Rosen’s objective to “create a refined but not stuffy menu using the best local ingredients available”, Wells and his team’s “left-coast cookery” will be on display via a four-course, prix-fixe menu for $80 per person that launches on Tuesday, August 1. Dishes will rotate often, but the opening options include new plates like tuna Wellington and longtime favorites like Juniper & Ivy’s famous chocolate yodel dessert. There will also be optional wine pairings priced at $45 or $70.

The restaurant will have a separate menu for those seated at the bar, featuring snacks ranging from sliders and spicy handrolls to chicken liver mousse and pimento cheese with sourdough doughnuts; some of those a la carte selections will be available as supplemental add-ons to the prix-fixe dinner.

For now, a rep for the restaurant tells Eater that the prix-fixe menu will only be offered through the end of August but the restaurant intends to gather feedback from its guests as well as its purveyors to evaluate whether to continue with this new format.

Juniper & Ivy Prix-Fixe Menu